Those Who Fight Monsters
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: The Power Rangers were used to fighting the forces of evil; the problem is sometimes evil comes in human form too.
1. Chapter 1

Those Who Fight Monsters

A/N: A bit about me and what went into writing this story: Like everyone else, I grew up watching MMPR, loved it, was a big fan of the show, however it became harder to keep an interest as they shifted from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to every other kind of Power Rangers they had a series for. I also preferred the show before Tommy became the leader of the group, where I've always been concerned, Jason the Red Ranger is always the rightful leader of the Rangers, so this story is set in season one pre-the Green Ranger episodes. I wanted to do a story that tackled the idea of what the Power Rangers would do against a different kind of evil where their powers wouldn't have any use and they would have to step outside their comfort zone of how to handle a problem. It's been several years since I've actually seen the show so if I get any canon details wrong, please excuse them. This is my first and probably only attempt at a Power Rangers story, so I hope you enjoy it. All standard disclaimers apply: don't own, don't sue, please read and review.

It was just another ordinary day in Angel Grove, just like any one of a dozen other days where not much of anything out of the ordinary happened. The weather was normal, people were at work, and the kids were at school. At Angel Grove High, Algebra class was in session, and while this was not the best subject of most students who attended, most of them were doing their best to take in the day's lesson and figure out how to work the new equations. _Most_. Bulk and Skull sat towards the back and semi-quietly goofed off and ignored the teacher's lecture, that was as much a given as the sun rising in the morning. The other students who had the misfortune of sitting near the two slackers tried to ignore them and focus on their work, and anyone else who opted out of paying attention at least had the decency to be discreet about it. A few quietly doodled in their notebooks things that had absolutely nothing to do with Algebra, and a few others just sat straight and stared ahead but were daydreaming about being _anywhere_ but there.

The high school could at times be a revolving door, there were always new students transferring from other schools nearby or because new kids had moved into Angel Grove, and halfway through this semester they'd been graced with the presence of five new transfers, four of which adapted very quickly to their new school and made friends with the others and soon it was like they'd always been there. Then there was the fifth and most recent transfer student.

Nadine Pritchard had just transferred a month ago, and it wasn't confirmed, but suspected that she and her family had just moved to Angel Grove since nobody could recall seeing her around before and nobody knew the family or what they did. In the month she'd been there, she joined no extracurricular activities, she belonged to no team or group, she hadn't made any friends, and nobody knew anything about her, this was largely due to the fact that she didn't talk. She _could_ talk, this they knew because her first few days there she'd said a few words to the teachers, but she never talked to any of the other students and had made no attempt to make friends with any of them. Ordinarily this might be of concern to the school faculty, but she seemed to get the curriculum and handed her work in on time, so they didn't make a big deal out of it. To most of the students, this newfound and largely mute classmate didn't faze them and in time it became easy to ignore her, except for the school bullies who used her muteness to their advantage and picked on her almost daily since they'd quickly figured out she would just take it, but for the Power Rangers who had been observing her from the first day she arrived, it left all of them puzzled.

It was easy to pick her out of the student body, she was 16 and constantly wore a purple tank top with black stretch pants or blue jeans, she was most recognizable by her bright red hair that made her stick out like a sore thumb among all the blondes and brunettes of the school, which did her no favors anytime she fell asleep during class, which she seldom did the first couple weeks of her transfer, but now did almost every day in one class or another, such as was the case _now_.

Jason and the others had quickly caught on to when she did this; she waited until the teacher was focusing on whatever they had on the board, then she leaned forward in her seat, folded one arm on the desk, laid her head on her arm as she sometimes did when she wrote in her notebook, and fell asleep. Even though the Rangers weren't friends with her, they didn't want to see her get in trouble since she never did anything to anybody to actually deserve it; so they'd gotten in the habit of whoever was seated nearest her would try and wake her up before the teacher noticed her. Jason was seated right behind her in Algebra, he gradually sank lower in his seat and tried to reach over and tap her foot with his to get her attention, but he couldn't reach, so he sat back up, subtly reached into his desk and pulled out a ruler and reached forward and tapped her on the back with it. Her head jerked and she opened her eyes and sat up and looked back at him. She didn't say anything to him and he didn't say anything to her, he just pulled the ruler back and was about to put it back in his desk when the teacher took notice.

"Jason, _what_ are you doing?" she inquired in an authoritative tone.

Uh oh. Thinking quickly, he answered, "I had an itch," and proceeded to use the ruler as a backscratcher, drawing laughs from most of his classmates.

The teacher just shook her head and gave him a stern look that without saying a word, strongly advised him to pay attention to the lesson plan, then she turned back to the board.

That was the first time _he'd_ almost gotten in trouble for helping her, and though it wasn't anything serious, he mildly resented her for it. He just couldn't figure out why she couldn't come to school a single day now without doing this, he and his friends had plenty hectic lives between normal teenage stuff _and_ saving the world whenever Rita decided to attack, and none of them _ever_ did this. Even Bulk and Skull managed to stay awake in class most days, and they didn't even have any idea what was going on. There was something downright infuriating about having someone around who never talked, you couldn't find out anything, it left you with plenty of nagging questions, and no answers.

It certainly wasn't like they hadn't _tried_ to be friends with her, first day in they'd all introduced themselves and tried to make her feel at home, tried to get to know her, but it had all been to no avail, she wouldn't open up to anybody for anything. It was something none of them had ever seen before, and none of them knew what to make of it. But trying to help somebody who never talked was like trying to get through to a brick wall. It was frustrating but they knew there wasn't much they could do about it, so they resolved themselves to keeping a fair distance, if she changed her mind and wanted to talk to them, it was going to have to be her decision.

* * *

They could already hear Bulk and Skull taunting Nadine before they reached their lockers after the last period ended.

Kimberly rolled her eyes and groaned under her breath, "Not this again."

"Do you think anybody would do anything if I rammed my chemistry book down their throats?" Trini asked.

"Come on, let's see what's going on," Jason told them, and they ran the rest of the way down the corridor.

They turned the corner and figured out what all the commotion was about. Bulk and Skull were laughing themselves sick in delight of what they'd accomplished, while Nadine stood by her open locker soaking wet. From what the Rangers could gather based on the sight before them, the two goons had booby trapped her locker so when she opened it she was bombarded with water balloons, except, based on the color of the liquid on the floor pooled around her feet, some of them had been filled with soda pop. Nadine just looked like she wanted to kill them, but she stood back and just watched them as they fell over each other laughing at her.

"You should see the look on your face!" Bulk told her, and stopped laughing long enough to try imitating it.

"Why don't you pick on somebody your own size, Bulk?" Kimberly asked as she headed over towards them.

Bulk turned around and stared her down and wanted to know, "Like you?"

"I've got a better idea," Billy told them, "Try picking on someone your own intelligence quotient," he pointed back the way they came and said, "I think I saw a potted plant back there that'd be fair game for you two."

"Huh?" Skull turned to Bulk, "What'd he say?"

Bulk looked at him and answered, "He's calling us stupid."

"Stupid?" Skull looked to them and told them, "This was _brilliant!_ Do you have any idea how long it took to pull this off?"

Kimberly went over to Nadine and started to ask her, "Are you alr—" but she just stormed past Kimberly, and the rest of them, and disappeared down the hall. Kimberly bit on her bottom lip, let out a frustrated screech through her gritted teeth, strode over to the two knuckleheads and told them, "That was _really_ low, _even_ for you two."

"Oh come on, it was funny!" Skull told them.

"I don't know, guys," Zack shook his head with a knowing look on his face, "You know what they say about those strong silent types…keep pushing, and one day they just…SNAP!" On the last word he lunged at them with one hand raised like he was going to hit them, Skull let out a high pitched scream and jumped into Bulk's arms, who in return promptly dropped him on the floor.

"What's the matter, guys?" Zack asked them coyly, "Can't you take a _joke_?"

"Sure, if it's funny," Skull replied, "But what was funny about that?"

"You should've seen the looks on _your_ faces," he answered.

"Oh yeah?" Bulk asked, and pointed at them, "Well who elected _you_ guys as her guard dogs?"

"Why don't you guys just leave her alone?" Trini asked, "She never did anything to you."

"And she's not going to, that's what makes it perfect," Bulk told them, "There's nothing more perfect than somebody who's never going to rat you out."

"Oh yeah?" Trini asked, then turned and called down the hall, "Mr. Kaplan!"

Now a look of terror formed on the two bullies' faces.

"Hey!" Bulk said to her, "What're you doing?"

"Mr. Kaplan!" Trini yelled louder.

"Hey, you know what?" Skull said to them, "Go ahead, tell him, it's your word against ours, what's that gonna prove?"

That earned a collective laugh from the Rangers.

"Oh yeah," Skull was brought down a notch as his memory served him all the run-ins they'd had with the principal over the year.

"Just _leave her alone_ , got it?" Jason told them.

Bulk made an annoyed face and responded, "Okay, fine, got it." He looked to his partner in crime and said halfheartedly, "Right, Skully?"

It was obvious Skull wasn't sure what to think so he did what he always did, he agreed with his friend, "Right, Bulky, okay, fine, got it."

"Now _clean up this mess_ before we _do_ get Mr. Kaplan," Jason told them.

"Alright, alright," the two of them grumbled.

Skull turned to reach into Nadine's locker, but before he could, Kimberly came up and with a pronounced, "Uh-uh", kicked the door shut, resetting the lock.

"Bye guys," Trini waved with a small laugh.

"Don't be a stranger!" Zack called to them as they walked away.

"Ha-ha-ha," Skull dryly remarked.

Once they were gone, Bulk looked to Skull and said to him, "What do you know?"

"What?" Skull turned to him.

Bulk held up his left hand that showed his middle finger over his index finger, "Had my fingers crossed," and added sarcastically, " _Whoops_."

Skull grinned at this revelation and said, "Great, so what'll we do tomorrow?"


	2. Chapter 2

"I can't find her," Kimberly told the others, "I checked the bathroom, the locker room, the showers, I even checked the janitor's closet."

"Yeah, we didn't think it was likely," Zack replied, "But just to make sure, we checked the guy's locker room and bathroom too, nothing."

"We traced the footprints as far as the corridor outside of the science lab, then they ended in mid-formation," Billy said.

"She must've left," Trini shrugged her shoulders, "I can't say I blame her."

"If she doesn't tell Mr. Kaplan _why_ she left, then _she's_ the one that's going to get in trouble for ditching class," Kimberly said.

"Then _we'll_ tell him," Jason said, "Skull's right, it's our word against theirs, and Mr. Kaplan knows we don't have any reason to lie to him."

"I don't get what's wrong with them," Trini told the others, "They're always jerks but they seem to be getting worse than usual."

"Well it makes sense," Billy said, "They thought they found a perfect victim…" his four friends looked at him and he explained, "She can't show them up like _we_ can, and they're right, she's not going to tell anyone."

"I wonder why that is," Kimberly thought.

Just at that time, Mr. Kaplan came around the corner and he looked at them, "Oh good, I was hoping to find you here."

"We're glad to see you, Mr. Kaplan," Kimberly, "We…"

"Kimberly," the principal addressed her, "I would like to see you in my office."

Kimberly did a double take, "Me?"

"You," he answered, "Right away, please."

Kimberly looked to her friends and she could tell they were just as confused as she was.

"Alright, Mr. Kaplan," she said hesitantly as she followed him, wondering what was going on.

* * *

"Would you have a seat, Kimberly?" Mr. Kaplan asked as he closed the door to his office.

Kimberly was still trying to think what this could be about, and she responded, "If it's alright with you, Mr. Kaplan, I'll just stand."

"If you insist," he replied as he took his seat behind his desk, "Kimberly, have you gotten acquainted with our newest student, Nadine Pritchard?"

"Uh…" she shook her head, "Not really, Mr. Kaplan."

"No, I didn't think so," he said, "Nobody has, that's the problem. Kimberly, do you know how long I've been the principal at this school?"

She shook her head again, "No, Mr. Kaplan."

"Well in all those years I've _never_ seen a kid like this," he told her, "I've seen a lot of students with behavioral problems, the problem is she's too withdrawn to _be_ a behavioral problem. She doesn't talk to anybody, she doesn't do anything outside of the required curriculum, the teachers have come to me with their concerns about her, I've tried speaking with her parents but every time either I can't reach them or her mother tells me they can't get off of work to come down and see me about her. I'm not an unsympathetic person, Kimberly, I can appreciate there are a lot more two-income homes now and parents have to work longer hours than before, but their absence is not helping with the problem of their daughter. Now, I have tried talking with her, I've tried having the school counselor talk to her, stonewalled every time."

Kimberly lightly nodded but she didn't really get where this was going, or what it had to do with her.

"Mr. Kaplan," she said, trying to be diplomatic about it, "Where do I come into this?"

" _Usually_ when students act out it's because there are problems at home, problems that require professional help to work through…" he shook his head, "But I'm getting a different reading off this kid. I don't think _professional_ help is going to reach her, I think she'll benefit from some _unprofessional_ help." He looked at her and told her, "I don't think she needs a shrink, I think she needs a friend, and I know that you and _your_ friends try very hard to make _everyone_ feel welcome and that they belong, I've seen it many times before in this school.

"Oh," Kimberly was surprised by this, but she quickly recovered and told him, "Uh, thank you, Mr. Kaplan, we'll certainly try. Ah…speaking of which, we were going to come here and tell you that…" she almost said Bulk and Skull but decided it might be better to use their real names, " _Eugene and Farkas_ broke into her locker and drenched her with cherry cola."

The principal groaned and told Kimberly, "Two more students I can't figure out, and I _would_ entertain the notion of sending them to a shrink, but I think he'd need a butterfly net for those two. I will deal with them promptly."

"Anyway we can't find her now, and I think she went home," she told him, "Would it be alright if I collected her assignments and took them to her?"

"Of course," he answered.

"Great," Kimberly said, then added, "Do you have her address?"

* * *

"Mr. Kaplan wants us to be friends with her?" Zack asked as he walked with Kimberly to Nadine's house, "It's not like we haven't tried, we haven't gotten anywhere."

"I guess he thinks we need to try harder," Kimberly told him, "Who knows? Maybe it'll work, maybe we can even get her talking."

"I don't know," Zack replied, "She's been here a month, she hasn't made friends with anybody yet, she won't talk, and she's always got jerks picking on her. I think I saw this movie once, then by the end of it she'll be turning into a bear and _then_ where will we be?"

Kimberly laughed at his comment, "Come on, Zack, he's right about one thing, she _needs_ a friend, even Bulk and Skull have each other, if they do and she has nobody then we _know_ something's wrong."

Zack looked around at the area and at the street signs they passed by and he asked Kimberly, "Are you sure this is the right place?"

"I got the address straight from Mr. Kaplan," she held up the piece of paper, "1321 Gold Road, that's _this_ way."

"Looks more like the Land Time Forgot to me," Zack said, "I don't think I've _ever_ seen this part of Angel Grove."

Kimberly thought about it and responded, "Me either."

On the sidewalk things looked normal enough, but the houses were another story, most of them were run down and beat up and looked like they hadn't been lived in for years. Neither one of them could figure out why somebody would knowingly move into this part of town so far away from everyone else and all signs of civilization.

"There it is," Kimberly pointed to a two-story house up ahead, "There's a car in the driveway."

Zack looked where she pointed and saw she was right, a white VW Rabbit convertible was pulled up alongside the house.

"Looks like it's the only house out here that has somebody living in it," Kimberly noted.

"Well, let's see if anybody's home," Zack said, and headed up the sidewalk.

Kimberly joined him and they went up on the porch and she rang the bell and waited, but nobody came, so she tried knocking, still nothing. Zack opened the lid to the mailbox on the wall and told her, "No mail, somebody must've been here and gotten it."

Kimberly just shrugged at his comment, and pounded on the door again, and called out, "Nadine? Mrs. Pritchard?"

Zack tried peering in through the window, "Don't see any lights," he put his ear against the wall and said, "Don't hear anything either, no TV, no radio, no _nothing_."

"Well where could they be?" Kimberly asked as they stepped off the porch and she looked up to the windows on the second floor, "For that matter…"

"What?" Zack turned to her.

She answered, "I wonder where Nadine goes every day after school, we _never_ see her at the Youth Center."

"Or around _anywhere_ for that matter," Zack nodded, "I know, I noticed the same thing."

Kimberly went back on the porch and opened the glass door and tried the main door, locked.

"Oh well," she sighed exasperatedly, "She'll have to find them here," and slipped the assignment sheets in between the two doors as she closed the glass one again.

"Yeah, let's get out of here," Zack told her, "This place is too weird for me."

The two teenagers stepped off the porch and back down the sidewalk and headed back the way they'd come. They didn't look back, if they had they might have noticed a blind in one of the windows on the second floor being pulled back to watch them leave.


	3. Chapter 3

The weather looked bad the next morning as everyone headed to school. Where usually the sun would be shining and the air would be warm, today dark clouds filled the skies and looked like a storm was about to drop on them, and an unusually strong wind came out of nowhere. It blew hard enough that everybody had notable trouble getting to school, by the time Bulk and Skull finally arrived, the five Rangers saw Skull had his head down and was clinging onto the back of Bulk's jacket as they both struggled to make it to the entrance.

Zack leaned over to Jason and said at the top of his lungs, which still barely got heard over the wind, "Whoever decided school should be open today is out of his _mind_!"

"I know!" Jason replied.

"Ahh!"

A particularly brutal gust kicked up and Kimberly closed her eyes and tucked her head down and actually felt her feet leave the ground. She felt somebody grab her hand and opened her eyes and saw it was Jason. When that gust passed and Kimberly regained her center of gravity, Jason told the others, "Everybody stick together, we need to get inside before it picks up again!"

A screeching howl ripped through the air as another strong gust came in, they formed a human chain with Jason in front, Zack behind him, Kimberly after him, Trini behind her and Billy bringing up the rear, and together they slowly made their way through the gale and to the schools front doors.

What they hadn't noticed was that Nadine was the only student who hadn't arrived at the school yet. She came trudging up behind them, with almost no chance to even see where she was going and much difficulty moving forward with the winds against her, forcefully inched her way along and managed to get right behind Billy. As soon as the teenagers got into the building and the doors shut behind them, the wind was blocked out and the resistance was shut off like a light switch: Nadine had jutted her whole upper body forward to keep from getting blown back in the wind, now out of the wind she lost her balance and fell against Billy and a whole domino effect kicked in as one by one the teenagers fell against each other until they were all in a pile on the floor with a pronounced assortment of yelps and groans, with Jason pinned underneath the rest of them.

"What happened?" he grunted.

"I don't know," Billy said, "But I think that counts as a strike."

The others groaned at his joke as they got off of each other. Then they saw who had played the part of the bowling ball.

"Nadine," Kimberly said, "Are-are you alr…"

Skull's infamous high pitched giggle filled the air as they saw he and Bulk standing over them.

"Well would you look at this?" Bulk said to his partner in crime, "Now we know where the nerd club holds its meetings."

Skull laughed again, reminding the five Rangers of a hyena at the zoo.

"And look, they got a _new_ member," Bulk looked at Nadine, "Nerds of a feather."

One by one the six teenagers got up again and collected their things. Nadine picked up her backpack by one strap and immediately put it down, on Skull's foot, and he started screaming, getting everyone's attention. Nadine picked her backpack up again and Skull held up that foot and hopped on his other one, and inadvertently hopped right onto Bulk's foot, getting a similar reaction out of him. Now both of them were hopping around on one foot yelping and moaning in pain. The five Rangers stood back and had a good laugh at the sight of it.

Kimberly recovered first and told the others, around a sly grin, "We shouldn't laugh."

"We shouldn't, but we will," Zack replied.

"That was weird though," Trini said.

"Agreed," Billy turned to Nadine and asked, gesturing to her backpack, "May I?" She didn't refuse so he grabbed it and said, "It's not like it's that he…" and promptly dropped it to the floor, and amended his original statement, "Okay, it _can_ be that heavy. Jason?"

Jason grabbed it by its handle and lifted it and judged the weight of the contents and told the others, "Feels like there's a bowling ball in there." He handed it back to Nadine, who took it and they noticed now that she carried it at her side and close to the floor so she didn't have to lift it high. Without a word to any of them she awkwardly walked with the backpack against her leg and headed off to her locker.

"What was that about?" Billy asked.

Trini suggested, "You don't think she's planning to retaliate against them, do you?"

"We could hope," Jason replied, "Come on, we're going to be late."

* * *

The storm started by first period. All of a sudden the sound of rain pouring down could be heard from within the class room, so much so that several times the students looked up to make sure the ceiling hadn't developed a leak. The students sitting closest to the windows especially got an earful, and it wasn't long before they heard thunder thrown into the mix as well. A weird day that was intent on getting even weirder.

Today Nadine was awake for class and seemed to be hard at work taking the teacher's lesson down in her notebook. Trini was seated next to her and watched through the corner of her eye in wonder. Nadine wasn't an exceptional student but she was above average, but Trini couldn't remember ever seeing her pay attention to notes like this before, especially since there wasn't a whole lot to remember today. Usually when Nadine fell asleep in this class, Trini would subtly wake her up before the teacher noticed, usually by 'accidentally' dropping her pencil and reaching down to get it and in the process poking Nadine to get her attention. She decided to do something she'd never done before, she 'accidentally' let her pencil slip through her fingers and it fell to the floor with a pronounced thud for a few people to hear, and she reached down and picked it up, and kept her eyes focused Nadine's way as she sat back in her seat.

She only got a glimpse at the pages, but it didn't make sense. This was English class but Nadine wasn't writing notes, she was drawing something in her notebook, and from the little Trini saw, it didn't look like average bored-in-class sketches, it looked to her like Nadine was working on some kind of blueprint. _Weird_. Shaking her head to herself, she looked ahead at the teacher writing on the blackboard again.

Now today, Zack was the one having trouble staying awake in class. He took his education as seriously as the next guy but 19th century literature was something that had its moments and today was not one of those moments. He tried to stay focused but every few seconds his eyelids worked their way down and it was a struggle to keep them open. The only thing able to keep his attention was the occasional rumble of thunder from somewhere above. Life as the Power Rangers had been quiet for a while, nobody really said anything but they all suspected that Rita had something else up her sleeve she planned to unleash on Angel Grove soon. When and if she did, they'd be ready. Zack glanced over to the window and watched the storm outside, and it occurred to him that thus far they'd never had to take on any of Rita's monsters in a storm, let alone one like this, and he was hoping they didn't have to start now.

The wind picked up again and howled outside the building like a banshee, all the students looked towards the windows, especially the ones sitting right beside them. Trini sat to Nadine's right, to her left was one of the large windows, and Billy was seated two spaces behind her, _also_ right next to one of the windows, which sounded like it and that whole wall were about to be ripped right off by the gale winds. As the noise grew louder, Nadine got up from her seat and went over to the windows to look out and see what was going on. She was the only student who'd gotten up, and it didn't go unnoticed.

"Miss Pritchard," the teacher told her, "Return to your seat."

But Nadine ignored her and peered out into the abnormally murky darkness of the morning. The other students looked at her and looked to the windows, but nobody else got up.

"Miss Pritchard, take your seat _immediately_ ," the teacher raised her voice.

Suddenly Nadine turned from the window and kicked the desk behind hers, which made the girl sitting at it get up, then stepped over to Billy's desk and instead of doing the same, grabbed him and tried to pull him out.

"Hey!" he exclaimed as she took him by surprise.

Now the teacher was furious and stood up from behind her desk, "Miss Prit-"

A loud CRASH silenced her and filled the room, as did a wide assortment of screams of fear and panic as all the students scrambled out from their desks before anybody could fully comprehend what had happened, but what did was a large part of a tree from the grounds outside had been broken off from the rest and just shattered three of the windows as the wind forced it in. Broken glass was scattered all over the floor, two desks near the windows had been smashed, the rain and wind ripped around the tree and blew into the classroom, Billy and Nadine were pinned to the floor _just_ beside the wreckage.

"Billy, are you alright?" Jason asked as they made their way over to their friend.

Billy had been mildly dazed by what happened but he quickly recovered and answered, "I'm fine." Then he turned his head and saw Nadine was pinned under him and he moved to get up, "Sorry!"

Zack grabbed Billy by the arm and pulled him to his feet, and everybody was able to get a good look at how close he'd been to getting mauled when the tree fell in.

Nadine was still on the floor and didn't seem to be in any great hurry to get up. Kimberly and Trini made their way around the mess and knelt down on either side of her each grabbed one of her arms and pulled her up.

The whole classroom was in a fit of pandemonium as the teacher told everyone to leave single file and calmly head down to the infirmary to be checked for any injuries. Nobody could get out of the room fast enough, all the same they managed to leave without a full on stampede.

* * *

When Mr. Kaplan saw what happened in English Lit, he made an announcement that the rest of the classes were cancelled for the day. All the students were to call their parents to come and pick them up, the ones who drove themselves there were advised to exercise extreme caution as they left and to head straight home. Those were the lucky ones, they were able to leave right away, everyone else would be stuck waiting in the school for anywhere between 15 minutes to a couple of hours. The five Power Rangers were among those waiting for somebody to come and pick them up, nobody was going to risk walking home in this storm.

"I just can't believe it," Kimberly said half under her breath to the others, "If Nadine hadn't pulled Billy out from his desk, that tree could've crushed him."

"We _both_ were almost crushed," Billy said, "I don't even remember what happened."

"I do," Trini replied and shook her head, "It was _scary_."

"Hey," Zack thought of something, "How long do you think it'll take them to get all that cleaned up and get new windows put in? What're they going to do, just keep the whole school closed until then or just English Lit? And if they do that, how long do you think it's going to take to get caught up to where we were?"

"Good question," Kimberly said, "I don't think anything like this has ever happened before."

Jason turned and looked through the crowded hallway full of anxious teenagers waiting to get out of there and he spotted a familiar redhead moving through the wave of students.

"Hey."

The others looked and saw her too. Kimberly called over to her, "Nadine, is your mom here?" But the girl didn't answer, and she didn't look to them, as if she hadn't heard them at all. Kimberly pushed past some of the other kids and tried to catch up with the redhead and called to her again, "Nadine…Nadine," but she was left in the middle of the hall and watched as the girl in the purple tank top with her backpack slung over one shoulder headed to the exit. Kimberly couldn't let it go and followed after her, she made it to the doors and looked out but couldn't see anything by this time through the rain and the wind, so she shut the door and headed back to her friends.

"What happened?" Trini asked when Kimberly rejoined them.

She shrugged, "She's gone."

"That was quick," Billy noted.

"Did you see her parents?" Trini asked.

Kimberly shook her head, "I don't see anybody, but she couldn't have just walked off…could she?"

"She's not that crazy," Jason said, then added, "I don't _think_ …" he looked to the others and said, "It would be suicide to try walking home in this weather, we all saw what that tree did to a plate glass window, there's no way…somebody _had_ to come get her."

"I just thought of something," Kimberly told them, "Remember how heavy her backpack was earlier? She could hardly even carry it," she looked to Billy and Jason, "You _both_ picked it up, remember?"

"Yeah, what about it?" Jason asked.

"She just left _wearing_ it," Kimberly said, "So what'd she take out of it and leave _here_?"

An idea occurred to Trini and she said to the others, "Maybe she _is_ retaliating against Bulk and Skull."

"It's about time," Zack said, "She's been letting those two walk all over her for a month….I wonder what she _would_ do to get back at them?"

"If she did anything we'll probably find out tomorrow," Jason told them.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning the English Lit room was still being put back together and all the students were informed due to this there would be an extension on their assignments, which everyone was glad for. The rest of the day went without incidence, and by the last bell, the Rangers were waiting for Nadine. Before she had a chance to disappear out the exit, Kimberly and Trini came upon her and got her attention.

"Nadine," Kimberly said, "We're all going to go over to the Youth Center, do you want to come with us?"

The girl looked from her, to Trini, and back at Kimberly again, all quizzically, as if it was the first time, and in truth it probably was, that anybody had bothered to actually notice her and invite her anywhere to join in anything. She simultaneously looked like a trapped animal and like she genuinely didn't know what to do. Finally after a moment, she slowly and somewhat hesitantly nodded.

"Great," Kimberly thought they might be getting somewhere, "The guys are going to join us over there, let's go."

She _thought_ they were getting somewhere, once they actually got _to_ the Center and Nadine slowly inched away from all the other kids there and stood back watching everyone else from a corner, Kimberly felt the wind go out of her sails.

"I don't think this is working," she murmured to Trini.

Trini shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don't know what else we can do. We've already tried about everything, she just doesn't seem to want to be friends with _anybody_."

"How's that even possible?" Kimberly asked, "Everybody's friends with _somebody_."

Skull's telltale laugh preceded the actual appearance of the two dunderheads as they entered the Center. Kimberly pointed towards them and told Trini, "If even those two have each other, there's got to be _somebody_ around here Nadine can get along with."

"Hard to argue that one," Trini replied.

"Well, let's think about this," Kimberly said, "She's not in any extracurricular activities, she's not on any team."

"That's for sure," Trini agreed.

"She does seem to be a pretty good student, maybe she and Billy would have something in common."

Trini made a face and told Kimberly, "She's not that great at science."

"How do you know?" Kimberly asked.

"I sit behind her, she got a C on the last test," Trini answered.

Kimberly rolled her eyes to one side as she said, "I can just imagine how that goes over with her parents."

"Speaking of which," Trini said, "Have you seen them yet?"

Kimberly shook her head, "There wasn't anybody home when Zack and I went the other day."

"I wonder what they're like?" Trini asked.

While the two of them talked, Nadine stayed off to the side and looked around the Center, the only thing that particularly held her attention was Jason's karate class, but even that was short lived. After a few minutes she headed for the exit, nearly colliding with Ernie on the way out.

"Whoa, who was that?" he asked as he walked over to the girls.

"Oh, that's a new friend of ours from school," Kimberly explained.

"Must be pretty new, I don't remember seeing her in here before," Ernie said as he headed over to a table with a tray of drinks.

"No, and I doubt he will again," Trini commented.

* * *

The weekend passed uneventfully, and nobody saw Nadine Pritchard during those whole two days. Monday morning when school started again she showed herself, and a few heads turned when they saw her. Sometime between Friday afternoon and this morning, she had cut off her long red hair that was practically her trademark, and what was left now stood up in sharp spikes on top of her head, giving her slightly more resemblance to a guy than a girl. Among those who took notice were the Power Rangers.

"Whoa," Jason said unexpectedly as she went over to her locker.

Kimberly and Trini looked at each other, their eyes bugged out as they wordlessly tried to think what to even say. Under her breath Kimberly murmured to Trini, "I think Mr. Kaplan's going to rethink her needing professional help."

Trini just nodded in agreement.

Also among those who took notice were Bulk and Skull, who as soon as they saw Nadine and as soon as the Power Rangers weren't around, honed in on her and let loose with a fresh barrage of insults and taunts, which she seemed content to take, and did take during every break throughout the school day. Finally by the time the last bell rang, Nadine was late getting to her locker, everyone else had already gone on ahead of her, but it didn't matter because the two bullies were right on top of her again.

"Hey!" Bulk called over to her, "Where do you think you're going, Chicken Little?"

Skull laughed like a hyena, "Chicken Little, that's a good one!"

Nadine turned around and faced her two tormentors, who grabbed her short hair and made several remarks about it and how it only heightened her geekiness. Nadine turned around towards her locker again and started to lock it, and tried to ignore the constant taunts from the two knuckleheads behind her, but they persisted, and something changed. Nadine stood with her back to them for a minute, not doing anything, and finally as the two of them continued to squawk at her, she spun around quickly, brought one leg high up and kicked Skull, just missing his face by a few mere inches.

* * *

"I don't know, guys," Jason was telling the others where they'd gathered close to the exit after everyone else had already left, "We don't seem to be getting anywhere, I think we should tell Mr. Kaplan that we've tried everything we can, and it still hasn't made any difference. Nadine still has not made any friends, she doesn't appear to have any interest in _making_ friends, she still won't even talk."

Everybody's attention was quickly drawn to a series of screams and howls echoing through the corridor, and it was a no brainer who they were coming from.

" _Now_ what're those two doing?" Zack asked.

However, the answer wasn't what any of them expected as a few seconds later they saw Bulk and Skull running through the corridor, screaming, and chasing after them was Nadine, who as she ran was shaking one fist at them and screaming, "When I get my hands on you I'm going to tear you to pieces!"

That scene took everybody by surprise and left everybody completely dumbfounded and had no idea what to make of it. The only thing Billy could think to say was, "Hey, she's talking."

"Come on guys," Jason told them, "We better help."

"Her?" Zack asked, "Or _them_?"

Without waiting for an answer, the five friends took off after the three people who had run out the front doors.

* * *

Nadine chased Skull out into the school parking lot, for a few seconds he seemed to get far enough ahead of her that she couldn't catch him, but Nadine cut a corner and came at him from the side and managed to grab him by the neck of his jacket and used her weight to throw him to the ground, as he went down she kept a hold of him and shifted her weight that she went down with him and landed on top of him, knocking his face against the pavement.

"Who's laughing now, Chicken?" Nadine asked as she yanked his head back by his hair, then slammed it against the asphalt again, "Huh? Who's the chicken now?"

Only Nadine wasn't laughing, a second later she was screaming as she felt somebody grab her arms and pull her off of him. Jason and Zack restrained her though she kicked and struggled and yelled, and Jason told Skull, "Get out of here!"

Skull got to his feet and replied, "You don't gotta tell me twice, that chick's nuts!" And he took off running.

They held Nadine back enough that her feet were literally off the ground, and she was still trying to run after Skull, still kicking and screaming and struggling. Jason tightened his hold on her left arm and told her, "Calm down!" Some of the fight left her but she clenched her teeth together and grunted and growled like an animal.

"Let go of me!" she said, and tried kicking them.

"Not until you calm down!" Jason ordered her.

Reluctantly she gave in, and when they sensed the threat was gone they let go of her.

" _What_ was that about?" Jason wanted to know.

"Why'd you stop me?" she asked him.

It was the first time since Nadine had transferred to Angel Grove that anybody had heard her talk this loud and clear, the first few days she lowly murmured to the teachers when they spoke to her, and everybody was surprised by how rough her voice was now, like she'd been filled with pure venom.

"What's the matter with you?" Jason stood his ground and told her, "You're acting like a crazy person!"

"Maybe I am," she replied, "In any case it's about time somebody did something with those two boneheads. They've been getting away with everything for the whole time I've been coming to this school, everybody knows it and _nobody_ does anything with them, well I decided to."

"Nadine, you can't run around the school beating up on people," Jason told her.

"Oh yeah?" she got on her toes to look him in the eyes and replied, "You think after this they'll be dumb enough to try something again?"

But Jason was adamant, "Beating up on people doesn't solve anything, Nadine, it only makes things worse."

"That depends who's doing it," she said, "Don't act like you're better than me, I've seen you guys flip and toss those two before."

"Yeah but not to _hurt_ them," Trini pointed out.

"You were just _brutal_ ," Kimberly agreed.

"You guys got any better ideas?" Nadine asked, "Because I sure haven't seen much of anything."

"Nadine," Zack said, "Those jokers always fall on their own swords, they don't need much help from _anybody_."

The fiery redhead looked at the other five teenagers and said plainly, "I'm _tired_ of them harassing me."

"Then why don't you tell Mr. Kaplan about it instead of trying to beat them to death?" Jason asked.

"What good would that do?" she asked.

"You might be surprised," Zack told her, "Believe it or not there _are_ people around here who are concerned about you."

Nadine didn't respond verbally but the look on her face told them that she doubted that very much.


	5. Chapter 5

"Mr. Kaplan," Nadine addressed the principal in his office with her five newfound friends standing behind her for moral support, "I have bided my time and held my tongue for the whole time I've been coming to this school and every day all I get is nonstop harassment from those two chuckleheads; my locker broken into, ransacked, booby trapped, every time I walk down the hall all I get is ridicule. It's been apparent for quite some time that other people were also well aware of what was going on, and still _nobody_ has done anything with them. Exactly _why_ is it if anybody else steps out of line around here, they face consequences, and yet _nothing_ is done with Frick and Frack while they torment everyone else in the student body?"

The principal of Angle Grove High seemed to contemplate her question for a minute before he said to her, "Because, Miss Pritchard, if nobody speaks up, then they can't expect anything _to_ be done, and few people _do_ speak up, that's the problem."

"That's not the only problem," Nadine said, "The other problem is when they do and the authorities _still_ don't do anything about it."

"Now that is true," he answered, "That is an issue in other schools, but I can assure you here we take bullying _very_ seriously. I assure you that Eugene and Farkas _will_ face consequences for their actions. And might I add that I'm glad you _did_ finally decide to come forth about this."

"You are?" she asked.

"Yes, I was hoping that you would start to open up around here," Mr. Kaplan told her, "I had a feeling that these kids might prove a good influence on you."

Nadine turned and looked at the five of them over by the door and she looked back at the principal with a vexed expression on her face, and just said, "I suppose anything's possible."

* * *

"So maybe you guys were right," Nadine said as she headed out of the school with the others, "Maybe it wasn't a complete waste of time. But I _still_ think my idea was better."

"You'll get a lot further in life if you don't try knocking heads with everybody you disagree with," Zack told her.

" _My_ head would've given out long ago if I did that," she said.

"So Nadine," Kimberly spoke up, "How come you never talked before in the whole time you've been coming to school?"

The redhead stopped walking and the others followed suit a couple steps later, and she explained, "I never had anything I wanted to say that I thought anybody around here would understand, and truth be told there still isn't for the most part."

Trini and Billy shared a brief but intrigued look as they took that in.

"You're new in Angel Grove, aren't you?" Trini asked.

"Yeah you could say that," Nadine replied in passing.

"Where are you from?" Jason asked.

"That's classified," she answered.

Now Kimberly and Zack exchanged a confused look.

"What do you parents do?" Kimberly asked.

"That's also confidential," Nadine said, "Sorry, guys, the truth is I'm just not the sort for making friends, and I really wouldn't hang out with you anyway. I prefer to keep to myself, less baggage that way." She resumed walking again and picked up speed and left the five Rangers in the dust.

"Well that was nervy," Kimberly said.

"On the other hand," Billy suggested, "It _was_ a breakthrough. This could just be the beginning of something."

"I don't know," Jason shook his head uncertainly.

* * *

The next day at school, Billy was heading to his locker when he heard a sudden ruckus, and while he wasn't sure what exactly it was, he knew immediately that it was Nadine. He turned and started to head back the way he came lest he get caught in the crossfire also wind up as a punching bag, then curiosity got the better of him and he headed back to see what was going on. The answer came in the form of Nadine kicking her locker repeatedly, furiously.

"I don't think that's how you get it open," he said, trying to break the ice for the day.

She stopped kicking it and turned and glared at him.

"Just a thought," he offered.

"It's not that," Nadine said, "I'm flunking science and if I don't pass the next test then Mr. Kaplan is going to call my house again to talk to my parents and this is _not_ a good time for that."

"Well what're you having trouble with?" Billy asked.

"Pretty much everything," she answered, "I don't plan on being a scientist so why is it so important I learn science? It's not enough I already have to learn algebra that I'm never going to use, geometry I'm never going to use, grammar that _nobody_ ever uses, geography I'm never going to use and history that nobody cares about?"

Billy responded in a slightly surprised tone, "And yet you seem to do well in all those."

"Just because I'm good doesn't mean I _like_ it," Nadine said, "You ever do good on something you hated?"

"Well," he answered.

"Well what?"

"Do _well_ , do you ever do _well_ on something you hated?"

"I told you I don't use the grammar," Nadine said, "No of course not, you're the perfect student around here, isn't that right?"

That caught him off guard and he answered sheepishly, "I don't know, I never asked."

"Just beautiful," she snorted.

"I might be able to help you," Billy said.

"You?" she seemed surprised.

"Well yeah," he told her, "Maybe I could come over to your house after school and we could…"

"That's out of the question," Nadine said, "We're not in any position for having company right now."

"Okay…well, you could come over to my…no that wouldn't work either, we've got painters working today, the fumes would kill you."

"Probably," she concurred.

An idea hit Billy, "Do you know where the park is?"

"What?"

"We're all going to be in the park later after school, if you could join us there later on…"

"Doing _what_?" Nadine asked him.

"It's a nature project, once we got done there I could help you work on your science," Billy said.

"Why not?" Nadine gave in, "What've I got to lose?"

"You know, Nadine," Billy said, "You're a lot nicer to be around when you decide to act human."

His comment seemed to have no effect on her, for a second, then she flashed a large sarcastic grin and told him, "I wouldn't get used to it if I were you."

They heard a series of small, unintelligible sounds from around the corner, and peered around to see what it was. What it was was Bulk and Skull who seemed to be frozen in their tracks halfway between getting to their lockers and turning around and bolting. Billy and Nadine looked at the two of them as they remained frozen where they were and just got out a series of small mumbles. Billy also noticed that the corner of Skull's lip was split and bloody from where Nadine had knocked his face against the pavement the other day.

Very nonchalantly, Nadine merely said to them, "Boo," and the two punks let out matching high pitched screams and ran the other way.

Nadine grinned in satisfaction and commented to Billy, "I think your friend is wrong, sometimes violence is the _only_ way to accomplish anything."

"But it also makes you worse than they are," Billy pointed out.

"I guess we just have a difference of opinion on that one," she said, "Okay, the park after school, right? Yeah, fine, I'll be there."

* * *

"Hmmmmm," Rita Repulsa watched the image in her crystal ball and looked up and said to herself, "This could be interesting. There's something about that girl that I LIKE!" Looking back to it she added, "This could be just what I've been looking for, a chance to create an _evil_ Ranger to take down those sickening do-gooder Power Rangers. The very thought of them makes me SIIIICK!"

* * *

Nadine looked at her watch, "Meet in the park after school, _sure_ , Billy."

What Nadine hadn't told Billy was that while she knew _where_ the park was, she hadn't actually _been_ there, and it was taking her longer than she'd anticipated to get there, and in the meantime she hadn't seen any sign of other human life on the way there, all she _had_ seen were lots and lots of trees.

Stopping to look around and get her bearings, she figured once she made another turn through the clearing in her path, that should take her straight into the park. In the process, she heard sounds from somewhere through the trees and other plant life.

"Billy!" she called in an unamused tone, "Your sense of direction stinks. If this is your idea of a joke, I'm not laugh-hey!"

As she made her way through a clearing she saw somebody but it _wasn't_ Billy, instead she found herself surrounded by four strange men covered in gray from head to toe.

"What in the world?" she started to ask, but before she had a chance to finish that thought, one of them lunged at her making strange garbled noises, and she retaliated by punching it in the face, twice. The problem was there were four of them against only one of her, and she got in a few lucky moves and punched or smacked or kicked them, but they quickly outnumbered and overpowered her. Whether by dumb luck or something else, one of the Putty Patrollers got lucky and struck her just right to knock her out and she hit the ground like a ton of bricks.

* * *

"Oh well," Rita grumbled from where she stood watching the events unfold in her crystal ball, "Back to the drawing board." She groaned and placed her hands on her temples and screeched, "My headache's getting WOOOORRRSE!"

* * *

The Power Rangers were late getting to the park themselves, and when they did arrive, they heard the telltale sign that there was a fresh set of Putty men to deal with.

"You'd think Rita would've caught on by now," Kimberly said.

"I don't think it's in her vocabulary," Jason replied, "Come on!"

They were met with the sight of four Putty Patrollers flipping through the air before making perfect landings on their feet like a set of cats. By now they'd had enough experience with the Putty men to make short work of them, but they also knew that the Putties were usually just a distraction preceding whatever new monster Rita created. But when the Putties were defeated and disappeared, nothing happened.

"What's going on?" Trini asked.

"I don't know," Kimberly said as she looked around.

"It doesn't make sense," Billy said.

"Rita must be losing her touch," Zack commented.

"Oh no!" Kimberly pointed off in the distance, "Look!"

They could recognize the purple muscle shirt and red hair anywhere, and they saw that the person to which both belonged was sprawled on the ground and not moving.

"It's Nadine," Jason said, "Come on!"

The five of them ran over to their friend and found her sprawled facedown on the ground, they turned her over and Jason felt for a heartbeat and a pulse, letting out a sigh of relief when he found them.

"Nadine? Nadine, can you hear me?"

"Nadine, are you alright?"

Nadine made a couple of strange humming sounds in her throat before she opened her eyes, and groaned as she tried to sit up, "Where'd you guys come from?" Looking up she added, "Did you set me up?"

"Nadine, what happened?" Kimberly asked.

"Oh man," she grumbled as she touched the back of her head, "I just got mugged by the four _weirdest_ looking guys you ever saw, you wouldn't believe it."

"You don't say," Billy said innocently.

"Are you okay?" Trini asked.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine," she said, "But man, have I got a _headache_." She looked around and asked them, "Did you guys see them?"

"No, we didn't," Jason said.

"Don't that just figure?" she asked, "Oh well, the joke's on them, I didn't have anything worth stealing."

The five Rangers silently looked to one another in contemplation of what had just happened.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Kimberly asked as they helped her up.

Nadine groaned and rubbed her head and answered, "Yeah, I'm fine," she turned to Billy and told him, "But I think I'll take a rain check on the help in science." She looked at her watch and said, "I need to get home, my mom's expecting me and she'll start to worry if I'm not there soon."

"Is everything alright?" Zack asked.

"Everything's fine, I just have to get home," Nadine explained, "My mother is _very_ particular about my being on time."

"Then I guess we'll see you tomorrow," Billy said.

She didn't answer and just walked out of the park as quickly as she could.


	6. Chapter 6

"Trini," Kimberly said the next afternoon as they met at their lockers, "Don't forget we have to finish collecting everybody's donations for the elementary school's reading program and get the money dropped off tomorrow afternoon."

"Right," Trini turned her lock and popped her door open, "They should do better this time than last year, we've already collected…"

Kimberly turned at the sudden silence, "What's wrong?"

Trini rifled through the items in her locker and she turned to Kimberly, "Did you take the money out?"

"Of course not," Kimberly said, "You know I'd never go through your locker when you weren't around."

"Well it's not in here," Trini said, "And I haven't done anything with it."

"What?" Kimberly went over to take a look for herself, "Are you sure you didn't just misplace it?"

A quick and thorough search of the locker confirmed that it was not. Trini was the most calm and collected member of the Rangers, but right now she looked like she was going to go into a panic attack.

"Now what're we going to do?" she asked, "We told them we'd have the money ready by tomorrow."

"It has to be somewhere," Kimberly said, "It didn't just get up and hop away."

"But who else could've gotten into my locker?" Trini asked.

The answer came to them simultaneously.

"Bulk and Skull!"

"Of course," Kimberly said, "They broke into Nadine's locker to booby trap it, they must've broken into yours too to take the money."

"But why would they do that?" Trini asked.

"Why do they do anything they do?" Kimberly replied, "Come on, let's find those two clowns and let them have it."

Before they had a chance to even find the two punks in question, the girls quickly found out that several other students also reported things stolen from their lockers, mostly money, and the two female Rangers decided to bring the guys in on what was going on.

"Those two guys have done a lot of dumb stuff around here," Zack said, "But this is a new low even for them."

"I agree," Jason said, "They're a couple of jerks but I have a hard time believing they'd be that heartless."

"To say nothing of meticulous," Billy interjected, "As big of klutzes as they are, there would've had to be _some_ sign of tampering with the lockers, possibly they wouldn't even have bothered _to_ relock them."

The girls looked at each other, Trini raised her eyebrows and commented, "He has a point, they have a habit of making themselves known because they're careless and clumsy."

"So if they didn't take the money," Kimberly asked, "Who did?"

"Nobody else around here _would_ ," Zack said, "It _has_ to be them."

Jason saw the two clowns in question coming their way, and he suggested to his friends, "Let's go find out."

The five of them headed over to Bulk and Skull and stopped them in their tracks.

"What is this, a nerd crossing?" Bulk asked.

Jason all but got in his face as he calmly but firmly asked, "What'd you do with the money, Bulk?"

"What money?" he asked.

"Yeah, what money?" Skull asked.

"The money we've been collecting for the elementary school's reading program, that everybody in school's been donating for the last two weeks," Jason said.

Bulk made an annoyed face and replied, "You can forget about that, you ain't getting my money for a crumby cause like that."

"Yeah," Skull added, "You ain't getting _my_ …"

"Skull, shut up," Bulk told him.

"Right, shutting up, you got it, Bulky," Skull responded in a lower tone.

"The money everybody chipped in is missing, Bulk," Jason told him, "What'd you do with it?"

"What do you mean what'd _I_ do with it?" Bulk asked defensively, "You geeks are not pinning this on me, I didn't do _anything_."

"No?" Jason asked, "Then where is it?"

"How would I know that?" Bulk demanded to know.

"It was stolen out of Trini's locker, you and Skull already busted into Nadine's locker last week," Jason said, "What'd you think, you could break into someone else's locker too and nobody would ever know?"

"Hey!" they heard somebody calling from down the corridor, and it turned out to be Nadine, "Hey!"

Skull screamed and grabbed hold of Bulk as he saw her approaching. But she ignored them completely and walked around them and made a beeline for Jason.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"We're trying to find out what these two did with the money for the school's reading program," Jason said.

"And you think _these_ morons did it?" Nadine asked with a roll of her eyes and a puzzled look on her face.

"You think they didn't?" Billy asked her.

Nadine looked from him to Jason and to the others and answered, "I _know_ they didn't."

Now they were all looking towards her.

"How could you know that?" Zack asked.

"Because I know who _did_ ," Nadine said, "Who's been breaking into _all_ the lockers, well besides _mine_ that is, these two _totally_ pulled that job, but not the others."

"Who did?" Jason asked.

She looked at him curiously and said plainly, "Well if you don't even know that it can't possibly be these two chuckleheads, then you probably wouldn't believe who it _is_ , and if you wouldn't believe it anyway, why should I waste my time telling you?"

"Nadine, _who_ did it?" Jason wanted to know.

She shook her head, "You won't believe it, nobody will. The only way you'd believe it would be to catch them in the act, or…" a look of realization came over her, a light bulb had just gone off.

"What is it?" Kimberly asked.

Without another word, Nadine turned around and stormed off down the hall.

"That was weird," Trini said.

"What do you think she's going to do?" Kimberly asked Jason.

He looked at her, then back down the corridor, and said, "I don't know, but if she _does_ know who's responsible, then Mr. Kaplan ought to know about it."

A moment later, everybody in the hall heard a horrifying series of screams coming from somewhere off in the building.

"That sounds like it's coming from the gym," Zack said.

Jason turned to Kimberly and told her, "Go get Mr. Kaplan and have him meet us there." He turned to Zack and Billy and told them, "Come on!"

The three teen boys ran towards the gym and in the process got lost in a stampede of students running out of the gym in a panic.

"Get out of the way!" Jason yelled as he tried to get through.

"What's going on?" Zack tried to ask some of the others, but they rushed on without an answer.

In the midst of the human wave, the three Rangers saw Nadine dragging one of the boys from the gymnasium and over towards the boys' locker room, despite the height difference she had the upper hand by one arm wrapped around his throat, and using the weight and momentum of her body to push him forward.

"What's she doing?" Billy asked.

"I don't know, but we're going to find out," Jason said.

They ran into the locker room and were met with the image of Nadine attacking Roger Fenton, 17, half a foot taller and 60 pounds heavier than her, one of the other five students who transferred to Angel Grove last month. She had two handfuls of the neck of his T-shirt and used her grip to shove him back and knock his head against the lockers.

"Nadine!"

Maintaining her grip she spun around and pulled Roger with her and shoved him towards the three Rangers before they could grab her. Roger fell against Jason and the domino effect knocked Zack and Billy to the floor too.

At that time, Mr. Kaplan came into the room and Kimberly and Trini stood in the doorway.

"What in blue blazes is going on in here?" the principal demanded to know.

Nadine pointed to Roger who was still sprawled on the floor with the other guys and told him, "There's your locker thief, or rather one of them."

"What?" Mr. Kaplan asked.

"What?" the girls asked.

"What?" the guys parroted, just as confused as the others.

Jason and the others got to their feet and Nadine told Mr. Kaplan, "Somebody's been breaking into the students' lockers for the past three weeks, it just didn't surface until now when the reading program money came up missing." She nodded her head, "His locker's over there, check his bag."

"Roger?" Kimberly asked in disbelief. They didn't know him well but he'd seemed nice enough, unlike Nadine he'd adapted very well to the new school and the new students.

"Him," Nadine answered, "And those two other guys who just transferred, David Johnson and Bryan Frank. They're a ring."

Mr. Kaplan unzipped Roger's gym bag and took out a bundle of dollar bills with a rubber band wrapped around them.

"How did you know?" Trini asked.

"Because I've been watching them for the last month," she answered, "They seemed to adapt a little too well to a new school mid-semester, of course everyone else liked them and got along with them so nobody else paid it any mind, and nobody else would've ever suspected they could do such a thing, because they made sure they acted just like everyone else and got along with everybody. They weren't smart enough to stage one of their own lockers being robbed, most of the time they took stuff that nobody noticed right away, or thought they'd lost. This money was one of their biggest heists, that's what drew attention to it this time."

"If you knew that," Billy said, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"And why not sooner?" Zack asked.

She looked at them and the principal and explained, "Knowing and proving are two different things, this time he couldn't hide it and the haul couldn't be explained away as anything _but_ the school's money."

"Still, why didn't you tell anyone when you first found out?" Jason asked.

She flashed her eyes and raised her brows as if the answer had suddenly hit her, and answered simply, "You know what they say about loose lips." She looked at the thief and added, "As long as I didn't say anything to anybody about anything, nobody paid me much mind, that's where people make mistakes when they underestimate you, they get cocky and confident about revealing things in the open because they think nobody around will notice."

Mr. Kaplan was not amused though and he told her, "Although robbery is a serious offense, I cannot and will not tolerate violence in this school, Miss Pritchard."

"Not my fault," she insisted, "I was just going to restrain him until he showed me where the money was, he's the one that wanted to make it confrontational."

"He pushed so you decided to shove," Mr. Kaplan said, "That's not how you solve things."

"Got your attention, didn't it?" Nadine asked.

He did a double take and used a firmer no-nonsense tone as he told her, "Miss Pritchard, I would like to speak to your parents about your recent behavior."

"Too bad, you can't," she shook her head.

"And why not?"

"Because all I've got is my mom," Nadine answered, "And you can't talk to her, she's out of town."

"On business?" the principal asked.

"No," Nadine didn't miss a beat, "Family emergency. My grandmother fell and broke her ankle earlier this week and my mother's staying with her until she gets a house nurse to assist her."

Mr. Kaplan pulled back a bit and said in a softer tone, "I'm very sorry to hear that, Nadine, when is your mother expected back?"

"By Monday," she answered.

"Then on Monday I expect your mother to come down here so we can discuss what to do with you, until then I'm afraid I have no choice but to suspend you for the rest of the week."

Nadine didn't really look surprised by that announcement, just mildly disappointed.

"Yeah," she said low enough that the Rangers almost didn't hear it, then slightly louder she added, "You do the right thing and _you're_ the one that gets punished, that sounds about right."

"That is _not_ what's going to hap," Mr. Kaplan started to explain but shifted gears when she walked past him, "Don't you walk away from me while I'm talking to you, young lady!"

With her back to them Nadine responded, "I'm already suspended, aren't I?"

The five Rangers looked at each other, feeling like a violent storm had just passed, and that the current calm wouldn't last for long.

Kimberly leaned over to Jason to get his attention and said quietly so Mr. Kaplan wouldn't overhear them, "Nadine said she only has a mother, that means they'd only have one car, right? Given she walks to and from school every day?"

"Yeah, why?" Jason asked.

Kimberly said into his ear, "There's a car at her house, a VW Rabbit, we thought it was her mother's, if the car's still there, what'd her mother go out of town in?"

Jason looked at her and thought about it and suggested, "Maybe her mother never left." So the other Rangers could hear he commented, "After school we'll go over there and see what's going on."

* * *

"Are you sure this is the way?" Jason asked as the five friends headed up the empty sidewalk on the abandoned block.

"Positive," Kimberly answered, "Zack and I already came here before."

"Well," Trini commented, "This certainly is a side of Angel Grove I don't remember seeing."

"Me either," Billy agreed as he looked around at the scenery.

Kimberly stopped and pointed up ahead, "Jason, that's the house."

"And the car's still in the driveway," Zack said, "So her mom _must_ be there."

"So she just lied to get out of being in trouble with her mom?" Trini asked, "Wouldn't she have to _know_ about Nadine's suspension?"

"I think we need to go talk with Mrs. Pritchard ourselves," Jason told his friends, "And see what she knows about what's going on."

It was unanimously agreed on and the five of them headed across the street, up the block and up to the front door. Jason knocked on the door loudly and called out, "Mrs. Pritchard?"

Zack put his ear against the door and told them, "I hear somebody coming," and stepped back.

All five of them stepped back so they weren't crowding in on Mrs. Pritchard when she opened the door. However when the main door opened it wasn't Mrs. Pritchard who was staring at them through the glass door.

It was Nadine.

"What are you guys doing here?" she asked bluntly.

"Where's you mom?" Jason asked.

"I told you she's not here," Nadine insisted.

Jason pointed to the driveway, "Her car's here."

"It's none of your business," Nadine told them, "Now go away."

Instead, Jason grabbed the door handle and pressed the button that released the lever holding the door shut.

"Hey!" Nadine yelled at him, "You can't just barge in here, this is private property." Before they had a chance to come in, she came out and forced the door shut behind her.

"Nadine, this is serious," Jason told her.

She looked at him with borderline evil eyes and responded ominously, "You don't know what serious is."

"Nadine," Kimberly said, "You have to tell your mother you got suspended, and she _has_ to talk to Mr. Kaplan, she can't put this off any longer."

"She's not putting anything off," Nadine replied bluntly, "And she's not going to see Mr. Kaplan and _I'm_ not going to see Mr. Kaplan either."

"What?" the others asked.

"What do you mean?" Jason asked.

She shook her head, "That principal is a joke, he acts like he's _so_ concerned about my wellbeing, he makes such a priority of my school performance, he doesn't know anything." The more she spoke, the more her voice raised and the volatility of her tone, until she was about ready to explode, "He thinks on Monday he's going to talk to my mom about my outbursts at the school and try to figure out what to do with me…MONDAY I'M GOING TO BE IN JAIL FOR MURDER!"

"What?!"

"What're you talking about?" Jason asked her.

Now she had calmed down again, somewhat anyway, in a normal tone again she said with a shake of her head, "It's a long story and I don't have time to explain it."

"Okay then," Jason remarked calmly, and added, "Get rid of us." She looked at him with a barely readable quizzical expression and he told her, " _Make_ us leave."

She looked at him, then one by one to the other four teenagers standing on her porch. None of them said a word, all of them wore the same expression, though none of them wanted to make any trouble, it was obvious that none of them were going to leave until they found out what was going on. They had her outnumbered, and out powered, and she knew it.

"Fine," she rolled her eyes dismissively, and opened the screen door and said in a dry tone, "Fine, come on in."

One by one the Rangers entered the house, wondering just what they'd gotten into.


	7. Chapter 7

If there was a word to describe the inside of Nadine's home, under-furnished seemed the best way to sum it up. In every other house the Rangers had ever been in, no matter how meticulously everything was arranged, life had a habit of cluttering things up. The walls would be decorated with 20 different framed family pictures, copies of which would also decorate the tabletops, little porcelain and crystal knickknacks belonging to the women of the house would decorate the dining room table or the china cabinet, the top of the piano or even the top of the TV. There would be almost too many places to sit in the living room between the chairs and the couch or the couch and the loveseat. In between there would be potted plants scattered around the rooms or a mess of magazines and newspapers strewn about here and there, an extra set of somebody's shoes laying about, something that offered proof of a sign of life, of someone living in that house. Here, there were no pictures, no plants, no magazines; the living room consisted of one chair, a small couch, a TV and a lamp. The dining room stood virtually empty where otherwise there would be a full sized table and at least four chairs, instead only a small round table rested in it. It was very hard to believe that anybody had been living here for over a month.

"Where's your mom?" Kimberly asked.

"She's not here, she _is_ out of town," Nadine answered as she folded her arms against her chest, "That _wasn't_ a lie."

"Where?" Zack asked.

She looked at them and contemplated answering for a minute, before finally telling them, "In the hospital."

This got their attention and they looked to one another.

"What happened?" Trini asked.

"That's a long story," Nadine said, "That's also why it's _just_ my mom and I."

Kimberly's eyes doubled in size, "You mean your dad…"

"If you want to call him that," Nadine interjected.

"Your dad hit your mom?" Jason asked in disbelief.

Nadine laughed humorlessly and bitterly, "It's not as simple as that, _nothing's_ that simple."

"Then explain it to us," Zack told her.

It was obvious from the look on Nadine's face that this was not easy for her and she would rather do anything else, but slowly she told them, "I guess he must've been hitting her even before I was born, but I don't remember him actually doing it when I was little, or maybe he just got worse over time, whatever it is, it never took much of anything to set him off. If he said she didn't cook dinner right, he beat her, if he thought she spent too much money on groceries, he beat her, if she ever corrected him on anything, he beat her. A few times she'd call the police, but that didn't do any good, they'd chalk it up as a typical married couple fight, and leave, then he'd beat her even worse. She was in and out of hospitals and still nobody did anything with him. The last time he almost killed her, but it was also the _only_ time the police and the courts did _anything_ with him, 2-5 years for aggravated assault. To get that, he threw her down a flight of stairs, broke two of her ribs, almost broke her back, she was in the hospital recovering for two months. It was another six months before it even got taken to trial, the jury was out 30 minutes."

"How long ago was that?" Jason asked.

"2 years," Nadine answered, "We've moved half a dozen times, trying to find some place he'd never think to look for us. It's a catch-22 when you rely on the guy beating the daylights out of you to keep you financially stable, but he wouldn't _allow_ her to have a job so we didn't have much choice. Once he _was_ in jail and she was recovered she took any job she could, worked 2-3 jobs at the same time to make as much money as she could so we could get as far away as we could," she shrugged and gestured to the sparsely furnished room, "We didn't have much built up to begin with, we especially couldn't afford to have much stuff to move as often as we were doing it, just basics enough to get by on wherever we went. We'd just moved here and were getting everything set up and straightened out when she got sick."

"What happened?" Trini asked.

"When you've been beaten badly enough you have to be hospitalized half a dozen times," Nadine told them, "It really screws up your immune system, a bad immune system means your body can't fight off things like it ordinarily would. After a broken wrist, a broken nose, two broken ribs, to say nothing of a couple thousand broken blood vessels…we thought since he wasn't around to beat her up anymore that she'd finally be alright, we were wrong." She looked at them and said, "She's had pneumonia three times since he broke her ribs. The last time during the tail end of it, she had a coughing fit so hard she broke another rib. The doctors said it wasn't _that_ bad, that she could heal at home, then she got an infection, that coupled with the rib fracture, sent her right back to the hospital where she's been having a slow recovery ever since. When you're in a hospital all the time, you're in bed a lot, which means you can't get up and move around a lot like you ordinarily would, which contributed to a _fourth_ case of pneumonia that she's currently battling on top of everything else. Meanwhile, while she's in the hospital fighting for her life, she gets a letter she never sees because she doesn't come home, it's from the parole board. Since her husband served the minimum of his sentence he's applicable for a parole hearing, if she doesn't want him released she's supposed to come to the hearing and tell _why_ she doesn't want him released. She breaks her ribs, she's in the hospital fighting off infection, she doesn't see the letter, she doesn't go to the hearing, she doesn't go to the hearing, the parole board sees no reason why to _not_ let him go."

"Oh you've _got_ to be kidding," Kimberly said in disbelief.

"Do I look like I'm laughing?" Nadine asked, and told them, "When he got convicted he swore in open court that he'd kill her when he got out for testifying against him, and they _still_ only gave him five years maximum. He gets released tomorrow morning. It doesn't matter that we've already moved half a dozen times in the last two years, he'll find out where we've gone and he's going to come here, he's going to come here looking for her to beat her to death, he won't find her, so he's going to beat me instead because I'm handy and because I encouraged her to testify, except when he comes here I'm going to kill him first."

Despite everything they'd just heard, it was this last line that concerned them all the most.

"You can't _kill_ him, Nadine," Jason told her.

Unfazed, she replied, "Why not? Seems I've been getting plenty of practice this past week."

"Nadine," Kimberly was shocked, "That's murder."

"Yeah, it is," Nadine replied without missing a beat, "But it's also in defense of another person, but that won't matter, and I'll go to prison for life, but given that it means he'll _never_ be able to put a hand on my mom again, I can live with that, I'll _have_ to."

"There has to be _something_ else that can be done to stop him," Trini said.

Nadine shook her head, "I already tried that. I called the police and told them what's going on, they said they can't do _anything_ until he actually _hurts_ somebody, I got news for them, he's not going to settle for _hurt_ , if he does anything it's going to be to _kill_ , and they _know_ it and still won't do anything. So I'm going to have to. I've considered this from every possible angle, I've spent the last two weeks in school plotting _how_ I was going to do it, that's how I filled up English Lit period every day."

Trini thought back to the blueprints she'd seen Nadine drawing in class, at the time she couldn't think what they could possibly be for, it was to figure out what the best way to kill her father would be when he came to the house.

"You still can't do this," Jason told her.

"It's him or my mom and I, and I pick us," Nadine said.

"It's not going to do her any good if you go to jail," he pointed out.

"At least she'll be alive," she replied, "And the threat will be out of her life _forever_ , it's worth it to me." She jerked a thumb in the direction of the driveway and explained, "I take the car every night to visit her in the hospital in the next town, she's there under an alias so he wouldn't be able to find her and get access to her room. It's a slow recovery ahead of her, the doctors think she'll have to stay there for a couple more weeks at least. I don't waste her time with what's going on in school, no point in getting her upset, it's not good for her recovery. Every time Mr. Kaplan called and he thought she was blowing him off, it was me on the phone, the first few times she talked to him and blew him off because she wasn't feeling well and didn't want any questions asked, then once she was in the hospital I started impersonating her when he called, gave him an even bigger brush-off."

"You mean you've been here all alone the whole time?" Kimberly asked.

"Yeah," she answered.

Jason was trying to make sense of what they'd just heard, and he asked Nadine, "You said your dad's supposed to come here tomorrow?"

"Oh yeah, you'd think that'd be impossible, right?" she asked, "Not for him, evil has no limits on how it can find out anything it wants to know. Somehow he'll find out where we've gone and he'll be here."

"What're you going to do?" Billy asked.

She grumbled uncertainly and answered, "My best bet so far is to just pick up something heavy and aim for his skull, unless I get lucky and can just bash his head into something."

"No," Jason said, "What're you going to do tonight?"

She shrugged, "Doesn't seem to be much _to_ do, the clock's ticking."

"Nadine," Jason thought of something, "Go to the hospital and see your mom tonight, see if you can _stay_ for the night. If you're right, just don't come back tomorrow."

She shook her head, "It's not that easy, Jason, he'll come here and he'll _know_ we moved here, and he'll make himself at home until somebody _does_ come home, _then_ he'll let us have it." She had them follow her to a door in the hall that led to a small home office that was only furnished with a large desk and a metal filing cabinet against one wall. She pulled the top drawer open and took out a manila folder.

"What's this?" Jason asked.

"Hospital records," Nadine told him and flipped through it, showing them certain photos, "Every time she had to go, we always got copies of the doctors' pictures and their reports. We took plenty of our own pictures too, thought it'd come in handy as insurance someday. Broken wrist, black eye, split lip, broken tooth, ripped out fingernails, wrenched ankle, head to toe bruises, you name it, she's had it, they got pictures of it. I presented all of this to the authorities and they _still_ wouldn't do anything."

"Oh my gosh," Kimberly exclaimed at some of the photos.

"The day you about gave yourself a hernia trying to lift my backpack," Nadine told Billy, "It wasn't carrying anything to get revenge on Heckle and Jeckle, I gathered up all our documents and everything we might need, all kept in a lock box, and stored it in my locker. That's one place my dad would _never_ be able to find it, he'd never even think to guess. After the soda incident I made sure my locker was booby trapped so if Roger and his friends tried to steal anything out of it, _they'd_ be the ones getting a rude surprise, but they didn't bother with mine, so I figured our stuff was as safe there as it would be anywhere else. I've been trying to get everything taken care of for when I _am_ arrested since I won't be here to help my mom with any of it anymore."

"I'm serious, Nadine," Jason told her, "Go to the hospital, stay with your mom, _we_ will come over tomorrow and help you figure something out."

" _You_?" she asked disbelievingly.

"Hey, we're your friends, aren't we?" he asked.

"I never wanted you as friends," she told him.

"Maybe not, but you _need_ us," he persisted.

It was a hard point to argue but she responded with, "You'd do better to stay out of it so you don't get involved when the cops come."

"Well the way you've put it," Jason told her, "The problem's _been_ everyone else staying out of it. This time you'll have some help."

She shook her head, "What could _you_ guys possibly do?"

"You might be surprised," he said.

"So will we," Billy said half to himself, wondering as he was sure the others were, exactly what it was Jason had in mind.

Nadine sunk her teeth into her bottom lip as she thought of something, and she told them, "Watching you guys at the Center and in gym class, just got me thinking, when I was a kid I wanted so much to learn martial arts, I always wanted to learn to judo throw somebody across the room, but…anything I ever wanted, that didn't matter, especially if it cost money, my _father_ always kept that string nice and tight. Of course now it's too late to learn anything."

"It's not too late," Jason started to say.

"Maybe not, but it definitely helps if you also know something about gymnastics, that's something else I always wanted to try as a kid, and again it was always no, anything that meant anything to me was irrelevant…and _that's_ definitely too late," Nadine said, "Somehow he always knew how to make sure everything was always too late for us…and now the clock's finally run out for him too."

* * *

"What're you thinking, Jason?" Kimberly asked as the group of teens left Nadine's house and headed back to the main section of Angel Grove.

"Well there's no way we can let Nadine go through with this," he told the others, "Whatever you call it it'd be murder. I think we should go to the police."

"Good idea," Zack said, and pulled a manila folder out of his jacket, "I was just thinking the same thing, maybe with _this_ for a visual aid, they'll be more inclined to do something."

"Besides," Trini said, "They can't write it off as a couple's spat if there's someone _not_ part of the couple _and_ outside of the family reporting it."

"And there could definitely be strength in numbers on this side of it," Billy said, "Five is a harder number to ignore than two."

"Well, let's try it," Jason said, "We've got nothing to lose."

So the five of them headed to the police department and asked to speak with an officer, and they did, and speaking over one another they tried to explain Nadine's situation and showed the files to the attending officer as well, hoping it would convince him on how serious the matter was. But after all was said and done, the officer just shook his head and told the teenagers, "Until Mr. Pritchard actually _hurts_ somebody, there's nothing the police can do."

"Yeah but he _has_ hurt somebody," Zack said, "Look at the pictures."

The officer waved them off, "Those are all in the past and he has served his time for them, we can only arrest him for any _future_ acts of violence he might commit _when_ he commits them, until then there's nothing we can do."

"There has to be something," Jason said, "Can't you have an officer watch the house for when he comes?"

"We don't have the resources or the manpower for that," the officer told them.

"Well somebody has to stop him."

"Young man, if anybody tries to do anything to Mr. Pritchard _before_ he commits a crime, _that's_ assault and _that_ person will be arrested."

"Nadine was right," Trini said to Billy, "The only people punished _are_ the ones that do the right thing."


	8. Chapter 8

"I don't believe it, Nadine was right," Kimberly said as the five of them walked back from the station, "The police don't care what's going to happen, they _aren't_ going to do anything until it's too late."

"Well, anybody got any other ideas?" Billy asked.

"I got one," Zack said.

"I've got another," Jason told the others as he stopped walking and forced them to do the same, then turned to look at them.

"What is it, Jason?" Trini asked.

"We can't let Nadine commit a murder, so _we_ have to stop her dad," Jason said, "We outnumber him, if we catch him off guard it shouldn't be too hard. There's just one problem."

"What's that?" Billy asked.

"There's a chance the police will arrest _us_ for assaulting _him_ ," Jason pointed out.

"True," Kimberly said, "But it's an easier charge to fight than murder."

"Well, there's a second way we could go about it," Jason told them, "But it might cost us our powers."

"What's that?" Trini asked.

Jason looked at his friends and explained, "Well if this guy calls the police, they could arrest _us_ , but _nobody's_ going to arrest the Power Rangers, they wouldn't even know where to look for us if they can't identify us."

"Can we do that, though?" Billy asked.

"We need to consult somebody else about this," Jason said, and he raised his arm, gesturing to his wrist communicator.

"Zordon?" Kimberly asked.

"Maybe he can help us figure out what to do," Jason suggested, "The way I see it, either we can keep our powers or we can keep out of jail, either way it doesn't look good for us, but we've got to do _something_ to help Nadine, we can't let him get away with this."

"What're we waiting for then?" Zack asked, "Let's go."

And with that, the five Power Rangers teleported to the Command Center to get help from a higher authority than just their own consciences, and upon arrival were instantly met by their friends.

"Rangers!" Alpha 5 exclaimed at their sudden arrival, "What brings you here?"

Jason looked up and said, "Zordon, we need your help."

* * *

For the next half hour the Rangers explained the situation as best as they could going back to when Nadine first transferred to their school and everything that had taken place since. When they finally explained why they needed Zordon's help to figure out what to do, Alpha just shook his head and exclaimed, "Aye-yi-yi-yi-yi, this is a calastrophe, Zordon."

"We've done what we could to handle this the right way, but the police aren't going to get involved until somebody's dead, so we're going to have to step in and make sure it doesn't reach that point," Jason explained, "But we don't know if this counts as breaking the rules to being Power Rangers."

"It would seem to qualify as using our powers for our personal gain," Billy said, "Morphing so we can't be identified and thus no retaliation could come to us or our families."

"And there's a chance if we _did_ do it, Nadine would figure out who we are," Trini added, "She knows we're the _only_ ones who want to help her."

"Indeed," Zordon told them, "As Power Rangers it has been your responsibility to fight the forces of evil, unfortunately with Rita's monster creations it has been easy to forget that evil often comes in _human_ forms as well."

"I wish I could go to help," Alpha told them, "I wish I were a 10 foot robot, I'd like to teach him a thing or two," and to emphasize he attempted a karate chop with a pronounced, "Pi-ya!", but all he succeeded in doing was smashing part of the control boards, "Oops."

"Well we appreciate the thought, Alpha," Billy said, "But I think this is something we need to see to ourselves."

"So what should we do, Zordon?" Jason asked.

"Ultimately, Rangers, it is up to each of you to make that decision, but know that you will not face consequences for using your powers to defend another life against evil," Zordon told them.

"Good luck, Rangers," Alpha said with a sigh, and added, "May the forces of good be with you tomorrow."

"Thanks, Alpha," Billy said.

"Whatever you decide, Rangers, remember the other rule to being Power Rangers, do not escalate the battle unless you are forced to," Zordon reminded them, "It is not just limited to Rita's evil."

"Thanks, Zordon," Jason said, "We'll remember that."

And on that note, the five Rangers teleported back to Angel Grove to figure out their plan for tomorrow.

* * *

"The way I see it," Jason told the others as they headed towards their homes, "We can hold off morphing as a last resort. Mr. Pritchard has never seen any of us, he would have no way of knowing who we are."

"What about Nadine?" Kimberly asked.

"That's one thing I haven't figured out yet," he admitted, "We have to make sure she stays out of the fight because she _will_ escalate it."

"If we knew which hospital she went to," Zack said, "We could find her car in the parking lot and put a couple holes in the tires. She wouldn't be able to get back until after it was all over."

"Unfortunately she didn't say which town her mother was staying in, and she said her mother was hospitalized under an assumed name, we'd never be able to find it in time," Jason pointed out.

"What about that lock box she said is in her locker?" Trini asked, "She said it has all their important documents and records, if anything would happen tomorrow, she would need them with _her_."

"For that matter," Billy said, "How are we going to be there tomorrow when we're supposed to be in school? Nadine got suspended but if _we_ don't go, there's going to be a problem."

"Hold it," Jason thought of something, "I've got an idea. We'll have to break a few rules but I think it could work."

"What is it?" Kimberly asked.

"We've got to get to the school," Jason said.

"What?" the others asked.

It was already going on 9 o' clock that night, the school would already be locked up and everybody gone.

"What for?" Kimberly asked as they started in that direction.

"You'll see," Jason told them.

* * *

"Breaking _into_ the school, now I've heard everything," Zack said.

"Now I've _done_ everything," Billy said as he managed to get the doors open, "Picking locks, breaking into the school, I never thought I'd see the day, even if it _is_ necessary."

"We need you to do another one," Jason told Billy, "We have to get Nadine's locker open and get that box out."

They made their way into the darkened school and carefully made their way down the corridor until they came to the lockers, then tried to find Nadine's, and when they finally did, Billy attempted his luck at figuring out the combination.

"What if somebody catches us?" Trini asked.

"That's a chance we have to take," Jason said, "We've got to get this done tonight because we _have_ to be at Nadine's house tomorrow."

"But how are we going to be there when we're supposed to be here?" Kimberly asked, "If it were _one_ of us we could play sick, but all five of us getting the flu at the same time? They'd see right through that."

"That's something else we're going to have to take care of while we're here," Jason said, "If something happens that _nobody_ can come into the school tomorrow, then it wouldn't matter if we don't come."

"Like what though?" Zack asked.

"Got it," Billy said as he opened the locker door. Reaching in he found the lock box and pulled it out, it was _still_ heavy.

"Billy," Jason took the box from him, "Can you think of any kind of science experiment that if it went awry the school would have to be closed for a day but it wouldn't actually harm anyone or damage anything?"

Billy opened his mouth to answer, then thought about it, and after a minute he told them, "Yes, I think so."

"What is it?" they asked.

"What it would actually boil down to would be a massive, slow acting smoke bomb," Billy explained, "It would simply be a matter of combining disproportionate amounts of chemicals for…"

"So it would look like an accidental measurement?" Trini asked.

"Exactly," Billy said, "Nobody would ever suspect it was intentional."

"How long would it work?" Jason asked.

"Well…" Billy thought about it, "There might be a way to prolong it so it would mainly smolder all night and then let loose in the morning when they first open up the school."

"Do it," Jason said, "Is there a way it could look like something that happened by accident after everyone left?"

"If we crack a couple beakers, then it would," Billy answered.

"Let's do it," Jason said.

"You know, Jason," Billy said, "I can understand _why_ we're doing this, but I don't like it."

"I don't either, but right now we don't have any choice," Jason replied, "At least this way nobody's going to get hurt from it."

"What next?" Kimberly asked.

"Once we get done here, we're going home for the night, tomorrow we'll go _to_ school like we usually would, and then we'll go over to Nadine's and keep watch until somebody shows up. She was right about one thing, it _is_ going to end here."


	9. Chapter 9

"The car's not here," Kimberly noted when they arrived at Nadine's house the next morning, "Do you think that's a good sign?"

"If she'd been back since last night, she wouldn't leave again, so I hope so," Jason said, "I also hope she'll stay gone long enough for us to handle this."

"Think the door's open?" Trini asked.

"One way to find out," Zack said as they headed up the porch.

Jason went over to the front door and knocked and called out, "Nadine?" on the offchance she would be there, they didn't want to run the risk of barging in. But there was no answer, so he tried the door, it was unlocked so he pushed it open and one by one they stepped in.

"Nadine?" Kimberly called out cautiously.

"It doesn't look like anybody's here," Zack said.

"Maybe we should check," Trini suggested, "Incase _he's_ already here."

"I think he would've made his presence known," Jason replied, "Shut the door, we're going to wait in here."

"If they'd already moved six times," Zack thought, "And he's just getting released today, what makes her so sure he's going to be here today too?"

"Maybe they weren't able to move very far," Trini said as they put the lock box on the dining room table, "And that's why they moved so _much_ , to build up a distance."

"But if what she said is true, it's still not enough," Kimberly added, she looked to the others and asked, "Does anybody else feel nervous about what we're about to do, or is it just me?"

Trini nodded, "We've never had to do anything like this before, everybody we know in Angel Grove are good people. I can't imagine what it's like worrying your father is going to beat your mother to death."

That was the general consensus of everyone else in the room. Trini looked back at the black box and realized, "Hey, the lock's _broken_ on this." She touched the lid and it flew up like it was spring operated.

"What's in there?" Kimberly asked since it was now out in the open and fair game to see.

Trini unfolded the paper on top of the pile inside the box, "Medical records, hers…" she opened the next paper, "And her mom's…hers is notably _longer_."

"Does it say he beat Nadine too?" Zack asked.

Trini shook her head, "Just the basic information, blood type, allergies, any family illnesses."

They had all been so anxious for so long to find out anything about Nadine's life that they temporarily forwent the formalities about right to privacy, even though they knew it was wrong.

"What made the box so heavy?" Billy asked.

Trini took all the papers out of the box and they saw the bottom of it was lined with coins, old half dollar and dollar coins.

"She said they didn't have much," Trini said, "She must've put them in here so her father couldn't get his hands on them…looks like about $50 worth, maybe more." She tipped the box to an angle and saw there was something hidden under the coins, some rolled up bills with a rubber band on them, without undoing the roll she could see at least some of it was $10s and $20s, "This must be all the money they had in the house."

"Close it," Jason said, coming back to his senses, "We shouldn't have looked in the first place, even if the lock _was_ broken." He looked around the room and said, "If Nadine comes back, we have to keep her out of this. Let's take a look around and see if there's anyplace we could put her if we had to until the fight was over."

The five teens made quick work of the house, past the kitchen they found a small pantry, a combination bath/laundry room, and a door to the basement that had a latch on the front.

"This would probably be our best bet," Zack said, "It's the only one with a lock."

Jason opened the basement door and turned on the light, it was a short walk down a set of large concrete steps to an underground room big enough to walk through that served as an oversized storage room for the Pritchards' few meager belongings.

"That might do it," he said as he closed the door.

As they regrouped in the dining room, outside they heard a car coming up the street, Jason peered out through the front window and said, "It's Nadine."

"Now what do we do?" Kimberly asked.

"We have to keep her out of the way," Jason said.

The five of them stood in the dining room and waited to see what happened next. What did happen was the glass outer door was pulled back and the main door was kicked in as Nadine entered, and she stopped in the doorway when she saw them.

"What're you doing here?" she asked them.

"I told you we'd be here," Jason told her.

"Well great, you're here, now you can leave," Nadine said, "I just got back from the hospital and I'm in no mood for company."

"How's your mother doing?" Kimberly asked.

Nadine looked to her, "She's doing alright." She opened the door and swung her arm back and pointed sharply, "Now get out."

"We can't do that, Nadine," Jason said, "You know that."

"You don't know anything," Nadine replied as she closed the door and turned back to face them, "Why are you doing this?"

"Because whether you like it or not, Nadine," Jason told her, "We _are_ your friends, and we're trying to help."

"Exactly what is it you think you're going to do?" she asked.

"There're five us of and one of him," Zack said, "That alone gives us an advantage."

Nadine shook her head, "You don't have any idea what you're getting into. It doesn't matter how many of you there are, it's not enough. The last time he was arrested it took _four_ police officers just to wrestle him into the back of the squad car and they were all a lot bigger and stronger than all of you put together."

Their discussion was broken up by the sound of a car speeding up the street and coming to a dead stop outside the house, a car door slammed and they could hear the muffled noise of a man yelling.

"That's him," Nadine said, and turned towards the door.

That was when Jason and Zack grabbed her from behind and dragged her off to the basement. She kicked and screamed and flailed about in their grasps, Jason remained calm but firm and told her, "I'm sorry, Nadine, but we can't let you do this." They got the door open and put her on the top landing and pulled the door shut and locked it, then doubled back to the dining room with the others, _just_ as the front door swung open and a large and mean looking man stomped in and called out, "Where are you, woman?" He stopped when he saw the five of them standing ten feet in front of him and he demanded to know, "Who are you?"

They stuck close together and stood their ground. Jason answered simply, "We're Nadine's friends."

He stepped through the doorway to the dining room and they saw that he was well over six feet tall, built like he could knock redwoods down with his bare hands, and he looked like it wouldn't take much for him to kill somebody.

He looked at the lot of them and responded dismissively, "Nadine doesn't _have_ any friends, what are you doing in _my_ home?"

"Uh…" Billy raised his hand and offered, "Actually from a legal standpoint, Mr. Pritchard, it isn't _your_ home, and given you were incarcerated at the time of its…"

The next thing Billy was aware of was being thrown across the room and hitting his back against the wall, knocking the air out of him. Jason and Zack stepped into the fight and went at Mr. Pritchard from opposite sides to take him off guard, somehow though he was able to grab both of them and stop their attack cold, as if he'd been able to foresee what they'd do. Zack got flipped onto the floor and the man nearly dislocated Jason's shoulder as he twisted the teen's arm behind his back. In the split second his arm was released he felt something hit him square in his lower back, knocking the wind out of him and knocking him to his knees in excruciating pain.

Kimberly and Trini tried their luck and each grabbed one of Mr. Pritchard's arms to try and flip him but he was too strong and instead he threw Trini against the wall and knocked Kimberly against the table, toppling it over and sending her and it to the floor.

The back door flew open and Nadine stepped into the kitchen and came out into the dining room and stopped in her tracks. She saw him, and he saw her, and time froze for a second but felt like an eternity.

Then he spoke.

"You miserable excuse for a daughter, you think I wasn't going to find you?"

"No, I _knew_ you'd be here," Nadine answered. It was obvious to the Rangers as they got to their feet again, that actually coming face to face with this man again terrified Nadine to the point she could hardly move, but she forced herself to stand her ground and not let it show to him.

"You turned my own wife against me," he growled at her, "Got me sent to prison."

"No, you went to prison because you almost killed her," Nadine said, "And you're not going to get that chance again, not _ever_ again. It ends now."

"And who's going to stop me?" he asked tauntingly. Then he became more serious and shook his head and told her, "Never had any problems until _you_ came along, and there ain't gonna be anymore problems again, and there ain't gonna be no witnesses either." In two steps he was at the front door to close it, lest anybody happen to pass by and look in.

"We've got no choice," Jason said to the others, and got out "It's mo-" but he was cut off by the sound of Nadine yelling as she charged at her father.

Mr. Pritchard turned around, taken off guard by the noise of Nadine's screams, she charged at him and lunged at him at the last second, tightly throwing her arms around him so he couldn't get away, causing him to topple back and the two of them went right through the glass door which shattered into a million pieces as they fell out of the house.

"Oh my God!" Kimberly exclaimed as the five of them ran to the door to see what had happened.

The glass door was gone, only the wooden frame and several large shards of glass in the edges still remained. Shards of all sizes covered the front porch, and the stairs. Nadine and her father lay sprawled on the sidewalk just past the stairs, both of them covered in glass and blood, neither of them moving.

"Nadine!"

They ran to their friend and saw that Mr. Pritchard was more severely cut from the glass, and was also unconscious, likely from hitting the back of his head against the pavement in the fall. Nadine lay on top of him, tiny shards of glass covering most of her body and clothes, she didn't open her eyes but a low moan emanated from her throat.

"Nadine," Billy crouched down beside her and told her, "Nadine, don't open your eyes, you're covered in glass."

"We've got to get them to the hospital," Trini said as she looked to the guys.

"We need to call an ambulance," Kimberly said.

Jason shook his head, "I don't think they'd make it in time, we have to take them ourselves."

"You mean?" Kimberly started to ask.

"That's a chance we have to take," Jason said, "They're losing too much blood." He took off his red flannel shirt, balled it up and pressed it against the biggest bloodstain on Nadine's shirt. He told Kimberly and Trini, "You take her, we'll take her dad."

Working quickly, the five Rangers pulled the two people to their feet, maintained a hold on them, and teleported out of there and in front of the hospital. Kimberly and Trini pulled Nadine along by her arms and ran into the front entrance screaming.

"Help!" Kimberly shouted.

"Help!" Trini echoed.

"We need help!"

The administrative nurse came rushing towards them and asked, "What happened?"

"She fell through a glass door, she needs a doctor quick!" Kimberly answered.

"So does he," Jason added as he and Zack walked in lugging her father.

It seemed as if half the medical staff came out, suddenly they were surrounded by people asking questions and getting Nadine and her father lifted onto gurneys and wheeled down the corridor. The Rangers wound up filling the nurse in on any and all medical information they could.

"She's new at our school, we don't really know a lot about her," Kimberly said.

"Her blood type _is_ A-positive incase she needs a transfusion," Trini remembered from the papers in the lock box, "And she's not allergic to any medication that we know of."

"We don't know about her father, he came in from out of town today," Jason added.

Time seemed to become a vacuum. None of the Rangers were willing to leave the hospital until they knew how Nadine was doing, so they waited to hear from the doctor, and the waiting felt like it lasted an eternity. They alternated passing the time from sitting in the chairs in the waiting room to getting up and pacing around the room so much that some people who came in thought it was some new kind of Chinese fire drill.

"Oh no," Kimberly pointed to the entrance and said, "Look who just came in."

The others looked and were just as disgusted to see it was the same officer they'd talked to the other night. Jason went over to him and the others followed, so he wouldn't be able to go anywhere in the hospital before they had a word with him.

"We told you this was going to happen, you didn't listen," Jason told the officer, "She could've died."

"She _was_ going to die," Kimberly added, "He said he wasn't going to leave any witnesses this time."

The officer put his hands up to get their attention and told them, "I understand your frustration, but without an actual crime and a complaining witness, there's nothing the police can do."

"You want a complaining witness? You got one," Jason said, and all five of them raised their hands, "He assaulted all of us too, he's _dangerous_."

"I understand that, and legal actions will be taken against Mr. Pritchard when and if he's released from this hospital," the officer told them.

"What do you mean _if_?" Kimberly asked.

But the doctor came up and the officer followed him out of the waiting room, leaving the Rangers in the dust without any answers.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Last chapter, thanks for reading!

It was three days later before the doctors finally let the Rangers see Nadine. All the glass had been pulled out of her skin, all her cuts tended to, but she'd been sedated so her body wouldn't react to the pain and she could heal quicker. Gone were her blue jeans and purple tank top, now instead she wore one of the hospital's white and blue dotted gowns, white bandages decorated her arms and one side of her forehead. She was still teetering in and out of consciousness but she finally opened her eyes and saw the five people standing over her.

"Hey," she said in a low voice, before clearing her throat and sitting up, "You made it."

"How're you feeling, Nadine?" Jason asked.

"Sore," she answered, " _Very_ sore…I want to get out of here."

"What did the doctors say?" Kimberly asked.

"They," she groaned as she shifted around on the bed, "They said a couple more days for observation and then I should be good to go."

"Did the police talk to you?" Billy asked.

She nodded, "Yeah, they talked to me…and then the doctors talked to me again, to explain the medical terminology for what happened to my father."

"What do you mean?" Jason asked.

She looked at them and explained, "When we went out that glass door, he toppled off the porch backwards, hit his head on the sidewalk, caused permanent, irreversible brain damage, or so the doctors say anyway. He's a permanent vegetable now, hooked up to life support. So maybe it didn't actually kill him, but I still did what I set out to do, now he's _never_ going to come after my mom again." She glanced at Jason and said, "See, Jason? I told you, sometimes violence _is_ the only thing that works."

"I know, I still don't like it though," he replied.

She shrugged, "Try it from my side. Look, I want to apologize for the way I talked to you guys before, I know that you were just trying to help and I do appreciate it, but you guys had no idea what you were getting into and I knew it but I just couldn't explain it that you'd get it. Besides, this isn't the kind of stuff you ordinarily talk to people about, you know?"

"I guess that explains a _lot_ of stuff that's been going on the past few weeks," Zack said, "But how'd you get out of the basement?"

"They have a thing called windows down there," Nadine answered, "I busted one and crawled out. I appreciate you trying to help, but you couldn't fight my fight for me…" she looked at them all and added, "And _why_ was this one man able to take on five accomplished martial artists, you might ask?"

"Technically four," Billy offered, "I'm still a beginner."

She smiled and answered, "Well I can tell you why, because he's an expert in the field, he was a world champion himself 20 years ago."

"What?" Jason asked.

"He was?" Kimberly asked.

"Yeah," she shook her head, "Don't know where it all went wrong but apparently it did, all that stuff _you_ think it represents: courage, integrity, loyalty…never meant anything to _him_."

"Apparently," Jason said.

"Hey," Nadine's eyes all but closed and her voice was starting to slur as she told them, "I really appreciate you guys coming to see me, but I'm very tired, I think I'm just gonna go back to sleep…" her head hit the pillow before she got the last syllable out, and she was out like a light.

The five Rangers left her room and the hospital and headed back for home.

"That certainly explains a _lot_ ," Kimberly said.

"I wonder what they're going to do now," Trini added.

"I don't know," Billy said, "But I've got an idea."

Everybody stopped and turned towards him.

"What is it?" Jason asked.

* * *

Nadine was released from the hospital on Monday, Tuesday morning she showed up at school and looked very much herself from a few days ago, only a few bandages remained now and only a few small bruises were on her arms and face. She met with the Rangers outside the school and joined them as they headed in, and explained her current situation.

"The doctors said that Mom's doing really well now and they think in a couple more weeks she'll be able to come home."

"That has to be a huge relief," Kimberly said.

"It is," Nadine answered, "I was alone for so long I was actually starting to get used to it. That's when I knew something was _really_ wrong."

"Well it looks like everybody around here's going to have to adjust to you actually _talking_ to them now," Zack said as they headed to first period.

"Oh I'm sure before long they'll all wish I still _wasn't_ speaking to anybody," she replied.

"You never know," Zack told her.

They reached the classroom and Jason opened the door, Nadine hadn't realized she'd gone in ahead of the others but as soon as she set foot in the doorway…

"SURPRISE!"

Nadine jumped back and took in the scene before her, every head was turned to look towards her and over the blackboard hung a big homemade banner that read WELCOME BACK, NADINE.

"What is this?" she spun around and asked the others.

"I guess you'd say it's something like a homecoming," Jason answered.

"You did this?" she asked.

"Well it was Billy's idea," Trini told her, "But everybody was on board with it."

The showdown at Nadine's house was all the whole school had been talking about since the police report came out. Suddenly a lot of the student body had been humbled by this revelation of their classmate, and many of them had wanted in on the plot for Nadine's welcome-back to school, even the teacher in the classroom greeted her back with a sincere smile. Suddenly several students who previously never said a word to Nadine got up from their desks and crowded her, all of them talking at once. The teacher told them to settle down and take their seats, and once they did, Nadine got the sudden feeling that somebody was behind her so she turned around and saw her suspicions were right, Bulk and Skull stood right behind her and both of them looked similar to a deer in headlights as they both stammered cluelessly, trying to say something.

"Uh,"

"Uh,"

"Uh,"

"Uh,"

"Uh,"

"Uh,"

"Uh," Bulk elbowed Skull.

"Here," Skull raised his hand and held out a small plastic wrapped bouquet of flowers.

Dumbstruck, Nadine grabbed the flowers with one hand and flashed a bug-eyed expression towards the Rangers as if to ask 'are they serious?'

"Alright, everybody," the teacher told them, "Take your seats and let's begin."

* * *

"That's the last of it," Nadine put a large taped box down on the floor by the front door, "The moving van will come in first thing tomorrow and we'll be out of here."

It was two months after Nadine had been in the hospital, it was also the end of the semester which the Rangers had found out meant that she and her mom were moving again.

"I just hate that you have to leave," Kimberly said as the others joined her in the front hall, "It's not going to be the same around Angel Grove without you."

"Yeah, I know," Nadine replied, "But now my mom and I can go back home and I'll be able to start the next semester at my original school, tell you the truth I'm looking forward to seeing everybody there again. I had friends there I haven't talked to in two years, I wonder if they'll still be there, if they'll even remember me."

"You have a tendency to leave a lasting impression on people, Nadine," Zack told her, "I doubt they'll forget."

The redhead sat down on a small trunk set next to the wall and said to them, "It's been a great couple of months, it's definitely been _interesting_ , Angel Grove is a lot livelier place than I thought it'd be…" she offered a small smile and added, "The people here are pretty amazing too." She stood up and told them, "You guys really are something, when I came here I did everything I could think of to repel people from me because I didn't want anyone sticking their nose into my affairs…but you guys were relentless, you never gave up on trying to help me, even when I told you to, I'm glad you didn't give up."

"It's not in our nature," Jason answered.

"Me either," she replied, "I guess that's why we eventually got along so well together. Now, I'll be going back home, and someday some other new kid is going to transfer here and take my old place at the school, and that'll be the end of that."

"You make it sound so final," Kimberly said.

"Isn't it?" Nadine asked, "People always say that they'll stay in touch, they'll see each other, but the fact is very few of them ever do, once you're out of sight, you're out of mind, people have a tendency to forget about you, despite their better efforts."

"That's _not_ going to happen," Zack said.

"Yeah well, I guess time will tell on that one," she replied, "I know I won't forget _you_ guys, there're too many of you for that to happen."

Even though Nadine's personality had massively thawed out since her release from the hospital, she did something that was still out of the ordinary and caught everybody off guard, she went over and hugged them.

"Who knows? Maybe someday I'll come back to this town," she said as she pulled back from crushing Billy and Trini in a group hug, "Stranger things have happened."

"That's for sure," Zack commented, thinking to the fact that Angel Grove defined strange things happening with Rita constantly unleashing monsters onto the planet for them to battle against.

* * *

They'd gone over the next morning to say their final goodbyes, but found by the time they got there that the moving van and Mrs. Pritchard's car were both gone, and the house sat empty, and now resembled every other abandoned house on the block.

"She _said_ they didn't have a lot of stuff to take with them," Trini said, "I guess it doesn't take long to move when everything is bare bones."

"Do you think we will see her again?" Kimberly asked.

"I don't know," Jason said, "Maybe."

"She might not," Trini thought, "Even if the doctors are right and her dad never gets out of the hospital, he's _here_ , so she probably _wouldn't_ want to come back."

"I don't know, guys, I think she might come back," Zack told them, "Think about it, who can she trust better?"

They turned away from the vacant house and headed back the way they'd come.

"I keep thinking about what Nadine said the other day," Trini said to the others, "About soon there'll be someone else transferring here in her place. I wonder who that'll be?"

"Beats me," Jason replied, "But after everything that's been going on around here the last couple of months, things should start to quiet down now."

Just then their wrist transmitters beeped, and Zordon's voice came through, "Rangers."

"Or maybe not," Jason said.

The End


End file.
